


the road to hell is paved with

by spidermooned (softlyblue)



Series: Real Heroes of New York 'verse [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool (Movieverse), Hawkeye (Comics), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Miscommunication, That One Generic Alien Invasion Trope, peter is a melodramatic lil teenager, someone let clint have feelings in peace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 08:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyblue/pseuds/spidermooned
Summary: Tony Stark makes the offer again. This time, it’s for serious. Peter thinks about it, and asks a few friends for advice.***“He says,” Peter swallows, “He says I could. Like. Make more of a difference? In the Avengers.”“Okay,” Matt says. With Matt, it’s a toss of the coin what sort of reaction you’ll get; Matt only has two modes of treating emotion, and one is to deliver long, heartfelt speeches where he ends up crying at the end, and the other is to hiss like the stray cat he is in his soul, and to run away to go terrorise some terrorists down at the docks. The third option is one Peter’s only been told about by Wade and by Mr Nelson, and that is for Matt to curl up in a ball, hands over his ears, and curse into his knees until someone gives him noise-cancelling headphones and a cup of something warm and caffeinated.Peter isn’t sure which option he’d prefer, now.





	the road to hell is paved with

**Author's Note:**

> (n.b: this is not totally strictly adhering to the mcu, because in the extended comics universe fisk is an enemy of more than just daredevil. for example i think the first ever arc of ultimate spiderman is fisk vs spidey? and hes like. yeh hes a big boye so thats why i used him in the first scene ayyyo)
> 
> (n.b2: scarlet witch, briefly mentioned, is based on comics wanda and not whiny baby mcu wanda. comics wanda is my sugar mommy) 
> 
> apart from those, enjoy!!!! i sincerely hope that i will continue this verse bc i have plans *eyeballs eddie brock*

_“...hey, Pete. Listen, I know that test, you know that test, yeah, well done on passing the character exam with flying colours, have a trophy, all that. Well done, give my love to your sense of pride. But I got you a deal, a real deal, and I want you to think about it and I’ll send Happy around next Friday so you can, like, pack and pay your respects or whatever the fuck. Yeah? Yeah? Think about it, kid. The Avengers. Big leagues. Spiderman. I’m dead-on. Hundred percent serious, totally backing you here, so think about it long and hard, yeah, ‘cause I don’t play games and I’m not about character tests. Tell your aunt she looks stunning in that little black number. See ya soon.”_

 

Someone’s running down the street, snatching handbags, and Peter catches him by the wrist and gives him a talking-to before the police arrive. He hands out most of the bags, all but one, and he leaves that with the nearest grocery store and a promise they’ll give it to the screamy lady if she comes back.

Bad guys don’t do things during the day, but there’s always something going on. Peter stops it. It’s what he _does._

And then someone gives him a salted pretzel wrapped in newspaper, and he rolls his mask up past his nose to eat it, swinging through the city with his free hand.

He’s skipping school, but Ned said he’d cover for him, and at the moment school feels very low down on Peter’s priority list. He can’t stop thinking about it. Rolling it through his head.

So he dives down to the streets, half a pretzel hanging out of his mouth, and helps carry a guy’s shopping bags three blocks to his house, and then perches by a set of broken traffic lights to make sure none of the elementary school kids get squished on their way home from school. All things that are _tangible._ Things he knows he can help with.

“Spiderman?”

Hawkeye (the disastrous Barton one, not the Kate one) is lying flat on his stomach on a rooftop, sunglasses fixed over his face, an open copy of _Who’s Who 2018_ beside him, his bow in his hand. He has binoculars around his neck and a thermos flask steaming with the distinct smell of stinking-cheap filter coffee. There’s a tear in his combat cargo pants. “Hey, you _are_ Spiderman,” he says, when Peter just stares. “No crime in a guy hanging out on his own roof, right?”

“I mean, not _really,_ but you gotta admit it looks suspicious,” Peter kicks his brain into working again. Kicks Tony out of it. “Like, what else has an Avenger to do of a Tuesday evening? Stalk his wealthy neighbours?”

Clint’s face does several complicated things, because he’s as transparent as they come and isn’t really a _bad_ guy so much as he is terminally unlucky. “You wanna lend me a hand, or you gonna report me to the powers that be?”

“Nothing I can report you for ‘cept being weird,” Peter cranes his neck to read the page. _Wilson Fisk: Mayoral Candidate._ “Ohhh, okay, I see what this is.”

“You totally don’t.”

“Totally do,” Peter sits down, away from the point of the bow. Clint smells of gun oil and sweat and coffee, this close, which is his basic ground state of being; Clint is only _himself_ in the heat of the moment, and the rest of the time he’s a total disaster. “This is a Fisk thing. The Avengers pick up on him, too? Because I gotta tell you, Daredevil kinda called this one.”

“This is just a me thing, not  a… Daredevil thing or an Avengers thing,” Clint pushes his sunglasses up his nose. “I just. Personal. You think the Avengers give a shit about someone like Wilson Fisk?”

“He’s a big threat,” Peter says. Clint’s using his binoculars, but Peter doesn’t have to; if he squints he can see through the window of Fisk’s office, where a young man is carrying files from one desk to the other, walking around the potted plants that artfully litter the floor.

“Not yet, kid.”

“Big threat to _me.”_

“Wait ‘til he actually gets elected, then he’ll be a big threat,” Clint adjusts his binoculars, “For now he’s up to the small fry. Surprised you’re not on him these days. Bigger fish?”

“Hah,” Peter says despondently. In Fisk’s office, the secretary guy trips over a plant and mouths _fuck_ at the pot.

He _feels_ Clint’s eyes boring into the side of his head. “Seriously, kid, what’s up? You’ve spoken about one-thousandth of your normal word count, or whatever. The quiet makes me itchy. Tell your ol’ pal Hawkeye what’s got your goat.”

“You sound like someone’s grandad,” Peter says half-heartedly, “Man, talk about old before your time.”

Clint’s eyes stop burning a hole in Peter’s head and transfer slowly back to Fisk’s office window. “Your picnic, Spidey. Oh - _oh,_ look at this, hoo- _mama_ are we in business…”

In tandem they peer over the edge of the building and look to the road below, where a long black car has just pulled up outside Fisk’s offices. Discreet plates, blacked-out windows, and a crowd of suited men that get out of the car before the hulking great body of the white suit himself, his bald head shining in the New York sun. Wilson Fisk in the flesh, the shiny mayoral candidate, who kills men and comes out smelling of roses, dipping his shoes in the shit.

“I hate this guy,” Clint says, with feeling.

Peter nods. “Y’ever think, like… man, how great would this city be if he just fucked away off and left it? How many gangs would just _give up?_ He’s a dick. And he smells of pizza.”

“Never got near enough to take a whiff,” Clint says; he thumbs a little button on his binoculars, and a little red light starts flashing.

“Woah, dude.”

“Tony made them for me. Ain’t they _great?_ Record shit and all. Save my life.”

And now Peter’s looped back to Tony. Tony, the infernally caring Tony, the well-meaning, good-intentioned, _fucking ruining his life_ Tony Stark. “Aw, sweet.” Tony Stark. _Hey, Pete._ “Yo, man… can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Clint says. Fisk has slipped through the door of his building, taken the lift instead of the stairs, and now his immense shoulders are framed by the window. A show of strength, Peter knows it is, because anyone like Fisk _knows_ that sitting with your back to the window opens yourself up for a shot; someone like Fisk would _also_ know that sitting with your back to the window is a show of strength, because nobody would ever dare shoot the Kingpin like that. Bulletproof glass, for one. Snipers and bodyguards and cameras all around, for another. “Yo, Spidey, ask away. I’m a well of knowledge. Almost got my GED and all. ‘Nd I’m pretty smart ‘cept for all that, anyway.”

Peter watches Fisk’s shoulders shift, and wonders what the hell Clint’s hoping to record here. “Which do you prefer?” He says, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. “Uh. Uh?”

“Whaddaya mean, man?”

“I mean…” Fisk stands up, and Peter loses his train of thought, but it’s just to the bathroom and back. “I mean, like, Avengers stuff or this. ‘Cos… you do both, yeah? Different shit. Just curious.”

“Huh.”

“Dumb question?”

“Nah,” Clint taps his finger on the rim of his binoculars, “Nah, just different. Never really thought. I just kinda do what I wanna do, and forget if I’m doing it Avenging and all, or SHIELD and all, or just ‘cos I’m bored and I got a gut feeling. Y’know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Shitty answer. Only one I got.” Clint sets the binoculars on the wall, still recording, and rubs at his eye with a knuckle, dislodging his sunglasses from on top of his head. “I don’t prefer one ‘nor the other. Guess it helps I don’t get called for many _big_ ones, yeah? And I pulled out of living with Tony and Steve and the rest of them in their compound, or whatever. I just wanted… my place. I don’t do much. Just shoot arrows and hope they land.”

“You do a lot,” Peter says. “I mean. _I_ think you do. Kate does, too.”

“Aw, Spidey.” Clint’s heavy hand lands on his shoulder, in a way that’s probably meant to be friendly and comforting, but Clint has been a soldier for far longer, with far more regularity, than he has been someone who goes in for friendly pats. “You do good, kid. Dunno what New York would be without you.”

“Sweet,” Peter says again, and checks the time and _shit -_

“Bye, kid!”

“Bye, Clint!”

May’s cooking bolognese tonight, and Ned and MJ are coming around to properly tackle their chemistry homework and hopefully subdue it before submission date on Thursday. Life doesn’t stop just because Peter would quite like to take a break.

 

Ned is his best friend, and MJ is his. (Okay, so he hasn’t quite sorted out what MJ is yet, but she’s fucking important and he doesn’t know when she wriggled into his life but he knows that if she _left_ it, it’d be pretty damn empty.) And May, obviously, is the best person he knows.

“Spaghetti,” May yells, when the doorbell rings. “Spaghetti! You two! I _demand_ you eat spaghetti.”

 _“Mom’s spaghetti,”_ MJ says. Peter opens the door just in time for the pair of them to catch May’s closing speech; he grins at them sheepishly, and she points to his collar. “Your suit’s showing, dumbass. Stop wearing baggy sweaters.”

Peter groans and tips his sweater collar up. “Come and eat spaghetti _sans_ memes, and then we can all fight the periodic table.”

“I, for one, want to wrestle hydrogen to the ground and kill it,” Ned says seriously. “It keeps fucking up my diagrams.”

MJ snorts and calls them nerds and Ned fistbumps Peter and it all settles around him, a happy homely sort of scene he always finds himself a little surprised to still be allowed to have. Being _happy._ Weird feeling.

(A world away from _hey, Pete…)_

(But not really. Tony wants him to be happy, too. Tony just -)

 _(Tony’s_ happiness and Peter’s are two different things.)

“How was school?”

Ned covers for him, launching into an anecdote about how he and Peter managed to set fire to their workbench during physics, despite not ever even doing an experiment, and once the conversation lulls MJ mumbles out her latest plan to get the team to win at nationals, even if they are being captained by a grumpy sophomore. May laughs at all the jokes; offers to help MJ make a drills schedule.

Peter’s been to the compound, some evenings when Tony sends Happy and a box of chocolates to charm May into releasing her nephew. The Avengers are an awkward bunch, a pile of misfits still not-quite used to the world pouring praise upon them, and when Peter goes around it’s a few people mumbling in Russian, and Tony chatting to a robot or something, and it’s - yeah. Nice. He likes them all. None of them are _dicks_ except, like, Tony, but he’s only an asshole because he thinks that’s how friendly team banter works. Down in the bone he’s as nice as anyone.

_Hey, Pete._

Tony’s not doing it to be an ass - he thinks this is good for Peter, or maybe he’s lonely, or maybe he’s optimistic. But he’s not doing it for fun.

“Suit,” MJ says again, when they’re sequestered in Peter’s room with the door shut. “Seriously -” she unwraps her fluffy scarf from around her neck and flings it on Peter’s head. “You’ll be killed if May thinks you’re skipping school to be Spiderman again.”

“Guess I will,” Peter mumbles. Her scarf smells of perfume and of her, and he tries not to be a total creep as he wraps it around his collar. “Thanks.”

“I’m in the room, also,” Ned says from the top bunk of Peter’s bed. “Doing homework. Like I _should be._ Cough, cough.”

MJ gives Peter a _look,_ but she lets it go and spreads her books across his floor. “Okay, Ned, you take the hydrogen diagrams-”

“Aw, _c’mon-”_

“I’ll do the equations-”

Ned climbs down the ladder and lands on the floor, swinging his schoolbag into the pile of work. “And Monsieur Spider?”

“Sit there and look pretty,” MJ says. “He looks like he’s got hit by a car.”

Peter hums something that could be assent, and decides that she’s right, and that Ned’s knee is a perfectly good place to lay his head, napping while Ned threatens to strangle Einstein, Mendeleev, and whoever else responsible for the existence of hydrogen and it’s thrice-damned single electron. Or something. Or whatever.

_Hey, Pete._

Damn Tony and his good intentions.

 

“You’re an idiot,” MJ says, when she sees Peter in their modern lit class. _“Suit.”_

“You can’t see it,” Peter says. He knows she can’t see it. He’s wearing her scarf.

She pulls at his wrist, where the silver of the web shooters peeks out even under the holey sweater-paw. “Dude. _Dude._ What if Flash saw?”

“He’d think I was going to a con or something.” As though in a dream, Peter takes out his copy of Gatsby, his notes half-copied from MJ and half-copied from SparkNotes. “I’m not-”

“Sort out whatever’s going on with you, Pete,” MJ says, all soft and snappy at the same time. “But don’t make this a thing. Spiderman isn’t more important than, like, school or whatever.”

“When I work out what the green flash is, then I can jump off buildings,” Peter says. Ned comes in then, late, huffing and puffing with red cheeks. “‘Sup, man.”

“Hello, old sport,” Ned says to them. His notes are hardly better than Peter’s; MJ’s the literature geek among them, and her notes are easily twice as long as theirs put together, even if her handwriting is an unreadable scrawl of shorthand and doodles in the margins.

Peter shoves his hand up five minutes before the class ends, asking to go to the bathroom, and carefully doesn’t make eye contact with either of them before he leaves. He’s having a Tony Stark-related breakdown, and if that requires disappointment from his friends, then so be it; he’s gonna go and take it out on hapless would-be rapists and, like, evil bag snatchers. Maybe rescue a few cats from trees, that sort of thing. Be the friendly Spiderman the neighbourhood needs.

_But I got you a deal, a real deal, and I want you to think about it and I’ll send Happy around next Friday so you can, like, pack and pay your respects or whatever the fuck. Yeah? Yeah? Think about it, kid._

Like Peter’s decision is a given.

He can’t disappoint Tony and he doesn’t _want_ to. And maybe he could do more good on the Avengers than he does down here.

And Clint said. Clint _said._

It’s easy escaping the school, especially when he pulls his gloves on over his hands and stashes his sweater and pants and MJ’s scarf in his backpack. Mask in one hand, he climbs out the window of one of the disused technology rooms and jumps off the roof, landing just _about_ on the other side of the fence. He rolls his mask down his face, tucking the edges into the neck of the costume, and hums as he checks the web shooters. _Awesome._

Clint said. Tony said.

Peter’s never sure of anything, but _Spiderman_ hasn’t got a fear in the world. Spiderman aims his wrist at the sky and jumps when the other end connects with a billboard; car horns honk as he swings by them, and he waves at the people wandering down the street. A kid screams his name. (Spiderman, not- yeah.)

“Wassup, New _York!”_ He yells, energised by the air beneath him.

New York responds in kind and a pigeon unloads on his head, in true city spirit. Peter aims a kick at it, backflipping in mid-air, gratified when he hears an angry squawk and a sprinkling of feathers. Pigeons are just rats with more feathers.

He retrieves a loose child and returns it to its mother, who snatches it out of his arms and runs away. No helping _some_ people. He fetches a bowl of water for a panting dog tied up outside a grocery store, and pops his head through the bakery door nearest his apartment, because they like Spiderman and always give him a slice of cake that’s only a little bit hard. Good day.

He manages to forget about Tony and his offer for a glorious half an hour, and then it comes sneaking back to bite him in the ass.

When he hears the faint sound of someone playing Turandot and passionately singing along to the soprano bits, he knows exactly who it is, and _better;_ he knows exactly who would give him proper advice. Wade isn’t sane enough to follow convention. Wade _usually_ speaks his mind, if you can parse out the bullshit, the dated references, and the parts where Wade is talking to people only he can hear; if you can sort that out, Wade’s quite a sensible conversationalist. Yes, _seriously._ No, he’s not joking.

Peter lands on the roof silently; Wade can’t hear him through those headphones, anyway. “Hey. _Hey,_ Wade-”

“Oh, _Spidey,”_ Wade says, after they’ve done the whole routine. (Wade jumping, Wade pulling a gun from an improbable place and pointing it, Wade realising what he’s done and shooting himself somewhere vital in penance; Peter making Wade stop dismembering himself; Wade grinning so wide Peter can see it under the mask.) “Spidey. Been a while, crocodile.”

“Less than a week,” Peter reminds him. They’re sitting, now, on the side of the bridge, the Hudson glimmering below them. Wade’s shot himself in the foot this time, and he’s entertaining himself moving his toes to see if he can hit any riverboats with drops of blood.

“A week. _Pfft._ Ain’t nobody tell you time’s an abstract concept?”

“You tell me all the time.”

“I,” Wade shoves his thumb dramatically into his chest, and then prods Peter, “I am _intelligent._ Unlike anyone else you know. Time’s an abstract concept, and I heard that from Nathan, so I gotta know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Hey, if you scooch up you might hit that lady square on the head.”

Wade does, and high-fives Peter, the two of them giggling as the lady in the riverboat below them frantically pats the top of her scalp, then glares upwards at the wheeling birds.

“So. _So._ Itsy-Bitsy. What’s got your goat stuck up in his garters, or whatever? You wouldn’t find me ‘less you had something biting you,” Wade says, which. Yeah. Okay, fair enough.

Peter kicks out in the air. “You’re sensible.”

“I stand falsely accused,” Wade says cheerfully. “C’mon, kid, you look like someone took a shit in your birthday cake. Tell your Papa Wilson what’s going on.”

Peter sighs, unzips his backpack, and plays back the voicemail, which he can practically recite off by heart at this point. _Hey, Pete… Think about it kid. See ya soon._

And Tony sounds so happy. So _excited._ Like he really wants the best for Peter - which he _does,_ Peter doesn’t think that Tony’s out to get him or anything, but -

Wade whistles. “One-way ticket to the big leagues, huh? And he shoots and he scores!”

“Yeah,” Peter says dully. “Wahey for me.”

“But what’s this,” Wade flails his arms wide, “The crowd hushes, because player Parker doesn’t seem so excited about his home run! What’s got this star in such a mess! And there’s the halftime bell, and there’s our man walking off-field, and oh _Fred_ I wonder what’s going on in that head of his? Will we ever know?”

“I don’t want to upset Tony,” Peter says.

“Tell me about your father,” Wade nods seriously, patting Peter’s knee. “It can be so difficult. Lie back and think of England, or whatever the fuck, right?”

“But I _like_ what I’m doing.”

“You don’t got a dilemma, baby-boy. You got a.. one of those _conscience_ things.” Wade scrunches up his nose under the mask. “Egad, I hope it isn’t catching. I don’t want to develop one of those, not at this time of my life.”

“But what if I _can_ be more use in the Avengers?”

“What if pigs could fly, kid? What if Iggy could rap? All these questions and my poor alcohol-damaged brain can’t handle them.”

Peter groans. “But pigs won’t ever fly, and - whatever, _whatever._ But I _could_ join the Avengers.”

“You could,” Wade says easily. “I could join the X-Men.”

“Thought you said they wouldn’t have you.”

“I _could_ join the X-Men, and don’t you dare step on my infant dreams, Parker. Point is, am I gonna?”

“No, ‘cause they won’t have you.” Peter ducks away from Wade’s lunging hand, giggling a little. “I - yeah. What were you saying?”

“I’m saying, yeah, sure you could be useful to the Avengers.” Wade shrugs and Peter’s blood freezes in his veins. “But I’m _also_ saying, it ain’t like you’re chopped liver to us here. Remember that drugs bust, me and you and Red? Remember that time with Barton and Nathan and Castle? Remember that time we sent Nathan out for food and he brought ten loaves of bread and nothing else? You’re useful here, too.”

“Oh,” Peter says quietly.

And then Wade fucks it all up by bursting into song again, and Peter forgets that he sort of wants to cry, because he’s too busy laughing.

 

May tells him the school phoned, and she knows he’s been skipping.

“Oh,” Peter says. _Hey, Pete._ Tony could probably teach him, much better and faster than grumpy old Mr Perkins down in technology, who still thinks that building high-strength bridges out of cardboard is an acceptable final project. Peter’s got his web shooters, and he’s working on bigger things, better things. Spider bots.

And then May hugs him and starts talking about _Ben,_ of all people, and Peter’s crying a little bit into the shoulder of her cardigan and he doesn’t even know why.

He really likes Tony. Problem is, he really likes everyone else, too.

 

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Matt’s sitting on the fire escape of his own building, decked out in the horns and the mask and the red bulletproof suit. When he swings his leg, the iron staircase clangs on impact. “You’re out late,” he says eventually, when Peter just keeps clinging to the wall. “It’s only Thursday.”

Peter hums, watching Matt stick his head to one side. He does the heartbeat thing and Peter knows Matt thinks of him as something of a challenge, since his insides all got fucked up by the spider bite. “Worried? What are you worried about?”

“Invasion of privacy,” Peter says, and hops down to perch on the rail of the fire escape instead. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“Been busy, and you’re lying,” Matt says. Reaches out and pokes him in the shoulder. “What are you worried about?”

“Thought Wade might have told you.”

“Wade told me Stark was sending you flirtatious messages, which I _assume_ is a joke, because otherwise Wade would have tried to kill the guy by now,” Matt’s fingers find a hole in his own glove, and he tugs at a loose thread. “Why did you tell Wade instead of me?”

“I’m telling you now, dumbass,” Peter says. “Want me to fix your glove?”

“Nope. Tell me.”

Peter hums. “Tony offered me a place on the Avengers again.”

“And this is a big deal because? You told me he already did,” Matt sounds suddenly wary, “You told me you turned him down. Kid-”

“He says,” Peter swallows, “He says I could. Like. Make more of a difference? In the Avengers.”

“Okay,” Matt says. With Matt, it’s a toss of the coin what sort of reaction you’ll get; Matt only has two modes of treating emotion, and one is to deliver long, heartfelt speeches where he ends up crying at the end, and the other is to hiss like the stray cat he is in his soul, and to run away to go terrorise some terrorists down at the docks. The third option is one Peter’s only been told about by Wade and by Mr Nelson, and that is for Matt to curl up in a ball, hands over his ears, and curse into his knees until someone gives him noise-cancelling headphones and a cup of something warm and caffeinated.

Peter isn’t sure which option he’d prefer, now.

“The Avengers. What did Wade say?”

“He said _follow my heart,_ ‘cept he didn’t really say that. And I think he said something about cake,” Peter tries to grin wryly, but it turns out all sad and mopey and he’s glad Matt can’t see it. “Uh. Hawkeye told me that it doesn’t matter, and according to Wade, Nathan says we all die in the near future anyway so there’s no point in living. So I was wondering.”

“What I thought,” Matt says. “Because I am so very wise and sensible.”

“Yeah!” Peter says, and realises half a beat later that that had been _sarcasm._ “I mean. Like, I’d appreciate your _thoughts._ What would you do?”

“If I got offered?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d tell Stark to shove it,” Matt says. “I’m the product of nothing more than _my_ bit of the city. He can keep his aliens.”

Matt always says that, though, so Peter isn’t sure what he’s expecting. Emotional maturity from the man that deals with his rough childhood by dressing up as _the literal devil_ and atoning for his sins by, arguably, committing worse ones? But Matt’s kind of the best thing he’s got, so Peter shrugs and knows Matt can feel it. “But what if you weren’t you?”

“So, what would I say if I was you, you mean.”

“Basically.”

Matt shrugs. “What’s important to you? Not _me_ or _Wade_ or Clint Barton or Stark. What makes you go? If it’s Avenging, then go do that. If it’s homework, go do that. If it’s _this,_ keep doing it. The world’s only as complicated as you make it.”

“Mr Nelson told you that,” Peter says accusingly. Mr Nelson is the only adult he knows (through this business, anyway) that actually _acts_ like one, and whenever Matt says anything smart it’s a good bet he’s parroting it from Mr Nelson. “Anyway, you can’t tell me that. You have the gold star for complicating things.”

“Yeah, but you _aren’t me,_ Peter,” Matt says. Under the mask his mouth is frowning. “I don’t _want_ you to be me, either.”

Peter huffs.

“I want you to be better,” Matt says, so quietly that if Peter hadn’t pricked up his ears, he’d have missed it. “Now I got two options for you. Come inside and we order pad thai and get Wade to come over, or you come with me and help me bust the Irish drug smugglers down at the docks.”

“Both,” Peter says. “Call Wade, get drugs, and have pad thai afterwards.”

This appears to be the entirely correct answer, and Matt gives him a grin and dials Wade. He’s four on speed dial. (Mr Nelson is one, Claire-the-friendly-nurse is two, Karen-the-scary-secretary is three, Wade is four.)

(Peter is five.)

 

There are _aliens_ in _Hell’s Kitchen._

“Oh, fuck,” Peter says, looking over Flash’s shoulder at the live footage playing. He’s wearing MJ’s scarf; he tried to give it back but she didn’t take it, and he thinks she knows he’s glad about it. “Where’s that?” He knows. He knows those buildings. He’s jumped off those buildings.

“I dunno,” Flash says, too distracted to tell Peter to piss off. “Where’s the Avengers?”

MJ and Ned are watching, too. And their gazes transfer to the back of Peter’s neck, stinging his weird fifth sense thing. “Where are the Avengers,” Ned repeats hollowly.

“Oh, dude. Daredevil!”

On Flash’s phone, Peter sees Matt - out in daylight his costume looks _ridiculous -_ slinging those goddamned billyclubs like they’ll actually make any difference against _literal green oozing aliens._ Fuck’s sake.

“I gotta pee,” Peter says.

MJ gives him a _look_ and pulls on the end of her (his) scarf, and Ned hands him his backpack and promises to cover him for fourth period biology, and Peter gives them both the most grateful look he can muster, before he scurries away for the classrooms on the top floor. _Now_ he’s glad he’s paranoid enough to wear his suit under his going-to-school normal-Peter clothes, and his mask’s in his bag, and his gloves and his web shooters and within five minutes Spiderman is slinging as fast as he possibly can to the Kitchen.

He isn’t alone. When he arrives, rolling onto the roof of the building Mr Nelson and Matt have their office, he sees the two Hawkeyes already in action. “Hey, guys!”

“Spidey!” Kate, Competent-Hawkeye, salutes sloppily in between the firing of one arrow and the next. “‘Sup, man!”

Clint’s grinning fit to burst every time Kate’s arrows hit their mark, which is _every time,_ because Clint is at heart an erstwhile proud father. He squints up at Peter and nods when he figures out who it is.

Down on the ground, there are twenty or so green aliens, oozing primeval soup (or whatever) and speaking in some horrible, chittering tone that sounds more like gravel being slowly crushed into dust. Wade and Matt are down there, fighting back-to-back, and flashing silver is Nathan (oh, sorry, _Cable)._ Peter thinks he sees Jessica there, wrestling two of them at once.

“Hey,” he says, landing on his knees beside Matt, “Need a hand?”

“You could _say_ that,” Matt says through gritted teeth. “Web ‘em still so I can hit ‘em properly.”

Peter flies off like a shot, only too happy to comply. Matt is scary, when he isn’t Matt anymore, when he’s the Devil instead, gruff and growly and with _protection_ the only thought spilling around his head. Wade only has one mode, and no off switch, and he isn’t really scary. Matt is.

Peter dances around the rooftops, slinging and breaking and slinging again so quickly that it feels more like flying. “Hah! Eat my foot, indiscriminate alien person!”

The thing explodes on contact and he feels his heel digging into scummy mush before the alien bursts, splattering him, the ground, and Wade with blobs of green ooze. “Gross,” Peter says, wiping mush off his mask. “Gross gross gross gross.”

“Spidey! Baby _boy!”_

Peter catches Wade and throws him in the air as far as he can go, and Wade whoops and crashes down among a spawning, writhing mass of green aliens crawling from the wreckage of the one Peter kicked. “It’s like that snakey bastard that Roman dude tried to fight!”

“Hydra?” Matt says, slinging his club through another and ducking under Wade’s arm.

“Nah, those are the Nazi fuckers.”

Peter giggles, propelling himself into the air and away from the argument as the two Hawkeyes join the ground fight; Clint and Kate, slinging around each other, both as fluid as droplets of water dancing in the air.

And then there’s the sound of metal screeching and helicopter propellers cutting the air, and the Avengers arrive. Peter only just stops himself from making an embarrassing noise and asking Captain America Sir for an autograph, now they’re on the same side and all that. Captain America, Falcon, War Machine in his suit… _Iron Man_ in his suit… Vision, hovering down with the cape fluttering behind him… _dude._

“For fuck’s sake,” Matt says, and he doesn’t sound quite so happy as Peter.

“Hey, Mr Stark!”

“Hey, kiddo,” Tony flips up the faceplate and smiles. There’s a bruise purpling his cheek, which Peter pretends not to see. “How’re you doing?”

“Caught me on a busy day,” Peter crashes bodily into an alien and it bursts against his shoulder. “Mind lending a hand?”

“Oh, anything to get out of these meetings of mine.”

“Stop _bantering,”_ Wade yells, “Aliens! Aliens, fucknuts! Aliens!”

Peter clings to Tony’s foot and Tony drops him into the centre of a scrabbling spawn of them, and for the next while all Peter knows is green and ooze and Wade’s shoulder against his as they kick, punch, bite, and shoot their way out of the sludge.

In the end, the fight is over without Peter’s knowledge; he’s just there, all of a sudden, knee deep in slime, Wade’s arm slung around his shoulders keeping him upright.

(What happens is - Scarlet Witch arrives, with all the hauteur in the world, descending only to plant a kiss against Vision’s cheek. She’s as languid as she would be if they were meeting in the kitchen in the middle of the night. She laughs, and lifts up her hands, and says _go back to the planet from which you’ve come!_ And they do. Just like that. Scarlet Witch is scary.)

“Well done, baby boy,” Wade tells him, and plants a kiss on the top of Peter’s head. “Not dead. Congratulations. _Home run!”_

“Home run,” Peter agrees. His feet hurt, and his legs hurt, and an alien hit him very hard in the chest and it hurts most of all.

Matt is picking himself up, scowling at his clubs; the two Hawkeyes are asking each other if they’re okay, both at the same time, until Kate hits Clint and then hugs him very tight. Captain America and Cable are glaring at each other. Vision and Scarlet Witch are holding hands and sitting on a pile of bodies, as merrily as though they’re out for a summer picnic.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Peter shrugs Wade’s arm off his, turning as Tony descends. “Hi- hey, Mr Stark. Hey. Thanks for like, coming out and stuff.”

“Aliens are kind of the Avengers _thing,”_ Tony says lightly. His helmet is off, nestled in the crook of his arm, his head protruding from the gold-and-red shoulders. “You did real good.”

Peter raises the finger behind his back, because he _knows_ Matt is listening and he wants him to fuck off, and he knows Matt can see the hand. “Aw, not really. Anyway, I hadda skip school. I’m gonna be in so much trouble.”

“Detention’s a big deal,” Tony agrees. He grins. “You thought about it? Offer stands, kid. Happy, a stretch limo, your cases, a kiss from your dear aunt, and it’s drinking non-alcoholic martinis and fruit mocktails for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “About that.”

 

“So.”

“So.”

Ned has been holding Peter’s membership card for the last half hour and doesn’t look as though he’s going to let go of it any time soon. MJ’s doing much the same thing with Peter’s hand, and pretending she isn’t.

“He knew I wasn’t gonna say yes,” Peter says, waving his free hand in the air as widely as he dares without drawing attention to the MJ Situation. “Part-time. But only when there’s a level ten threat alert, or when I’m in the area.”

“Level ten threat alert,” Ned repeats. He’s stroking the card. Tony had it made specially.

“Level ten is when there’s a threat of national security,” Peter says importantly. “Like aliens.”

_“Aliens.”_

(Peter had said: _Thanks Mr Stark, really thanks, but I wasn’t joking the first time-)_

“Or Hydra.”

_“Hydra.”_

(Tony had grinned and he’d only looked a little disappointed. Sad. _I guess I kinda knew. You and, what, Barton? You better not be going getting irresponsible sponsors that aren’t me. I hold a monopoly on your college placement work.)_

(And Peter had taken the membership card - which, by the way, is super _super_ dorky, Tony - and had said _as if I’d work for any other sick capitalistic billionaire_ and everything had been, miraculously, all right.)

“So you spent two weeks freaking out for nothing,” MJ says wryly, “And now you got Tony Stark calling you like your _mom,_ and you got half the superheroes in New York watching you in case you start sniffling about how much you love them. That about right?”

“I don’t sniffle,” Peter says.

 _“Aliens,”_ Ned whispers. _“Hydra Aliens.”_

 

_“...hey, Pete. Sorry about last week. What can I say, yadda-yadda, a man makes mistakes, some quote from some old Buddhist or something, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t joking, though. You’re in it for life. Shoulda made it clear - you can do it and still go to school, you lil hyperactive bug beast, I’d be a pretty crappy pseudo-mentor Mr Miyagi guy if I didn’t let you do that. Or is Daredevil your new Miyagi? Real rude of you, Pete, I wanted dibs. I’m still sending Happy around on Friday. Clear your calendar, we’ll make it a, a, a slumber party, like in those teen flicks, yeah? I’ll pack you up and send you home Saturday night all fresh and clean for your aunt. Cap wants to meet you. Says you got gusto, which I’m pretty sure is his way of saying he wants to see if you can beat him up. See ya then, kid. Do your best. You always do. Bye.”_

Which Peter supposes is all pretty fine.

  


**Author's Note:**

> thank u exceedingly for reading!


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